U.S. District Court Strikes Down Alabama U.S. House District Boundaries

Posted on by September 5, 2023
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On September 5, a 3-judge U.S. District Court struck down Alabama’s U.S. House district boundaries. Singleton v Allen, 2:21cv-1291. The vote was 3-0. Because this was a 3-judge court, any appeal goes straight to the U.S. Supreme Court. It is considered very likely that the state will appeal.

Assuming the decision holds up, the petitioning period for any independent or unqualified party to run for U.S. House will necessarily be shortened. Under a published U.S. District Court decision from Alabama, Hall v Merrill, 212 F.Supp.3d 1148 (2016), when the normal petitioning period is substantially shorter than usual, the state must cut the number of signatures.

Here is the 217-page Singleton opinion. Two southern states have had their U.S. House districts struck down in the last two days; the Florida decision came out on Saturday, September 3.

Missouri Democratic Party Sets Out Rules for Party-Administered 2024 Presidential Primary

Posted on by September 6, 2023
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The Missouri Democratic Party has released its plan for its party-administered presidential primary in 2024. The polls will only be open between eight a.m. and noon on March 23, because it costs a lot of money to hire people to administer the polls, and the limited hours will cost less money. People can also vote by mail, if they request a mail ballot by March 12, and if they have registered as a Democrat on their voter registration form.

Also, Democrats are letting 17 year-olds participate, if they will be age 18 by the general election.

Missouri is in its first year of letting voters register into a party. The procedure for doing this was passed in 2022 and took effect January 1, 2023. So far the Secretary of State is not releasing any data about how many voters have registered into each party. The bill that set up the procedure was HB 1878. For government-administered primaries, whether a voter has registered into any particular party has no bearing on whether that voter can or cannot vote in any particular primary. Thanks to Ken Bush for the news about the Democratic presidential primary.

Reply Brief Filed in U.S. Supreme Court in New Jersey Ballot Labels Case

Posted on by September 4, 2023
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On August 23, the New Jersey plantiffs in Mazo v Way, 22-1033, filed this Reply brief in the U.S. Supreme Court. The issue is the New Jersey law that restricts the content of ballot labels for candidates in partisan primaries. The lower courts had upheld the restrictions. The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to hear this case in late September, but we may not know if the Court is interested until early October.

Federal Lawsuit Filed Against 2021 New York Law That Won’t Let Primary Voters Cast a Write-in for a Member of Another Party

Posted on by September 3, 2023
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On August 18, a new lawsuit was filed against the 2021 New York law that won’t let primary voters cast a write-in vote for someone who is not a member of that party. Frentzel v Mohr, w.d., 1:23cv-854.

A somewhat similar lawsuit had been filed earlier in state court, Kowal v Mohr. Although the trial state court struck down the law, the appellate state court reversed and upheld the law. Thanks to Joe Burns for this news. Here is the federal Complaint, which is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge John L. Sinatra.